There are definite cases of bullying on almost every school campus, camp, and playground. And there are also instances where kids are just being mean to each other but it gets incorrectly labeled as bullying.

So before we can call mean actions bullying, we have to first know what bullying really is.

And we have to know what bullying is not.

Because, as another friend pointed out to me, if we call everything bullying, we water it down.

We minimize true bullying experiences when we mislabel other actions as bullying.

And when we cry wolf too many times, when the mean behavior does cross over into bullying behavior, we will have watered down our voices.

Our anti-bullying battle cry won’t be as powerful.

Teachers and administrators may not hear us when we really need them to.

I had to figure out where the line was between mean kids and bullying.

And if we know the true definition of bullying, when we go to bat for our kids, when Mama Bear shows up because she has to, she has firm ground under her.

She has the facts.

And she feels confident in knowing what bullying really is.

The definition of bullying:

So what qualifies as bullying?

Listen, kids can be mean and tease and name call. They can be thoughtless and self-involved and not even realize they’re hurting other kids’ feelings.

That’s not bullying.

Kids have arguments and fights and misunderstandings all the time as they try to navigate through our social rules and figure out how to interact with other people.

That’s not bullying.

Bullying is intentional, deliberate and repeated aggressive actions (which continues after they’ve been asked to stop or they know they’re causing harm) that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power or control (ie. physical strength, popularity, or the knowledge of embarrassing information).

And there are four kinds of bullying that “hurt, harm, or humiliate:”

1. Social Bullying-social exclusion from a group on purpose, spreading rumors, telling others not to be friends with someone, intentional isolation